Newsletter

Ellis Square merchants make plans for the holidays

At the Web site devoted to the future of Ellis Square (www.theellisproject.com), there's an aerial photo of the site taken in October.

The square and surrounding blocks are still little more than a big hole in the ground, and it's pretty clear that the new City Market Hotel will not be opening in 2007, as it is still listed on the Web site (www.newsplacesavannah.com) devoted to the commercial phases of the project.

Despite the delays, not to mention the eerie cracks, the construction apparently has not had the extreme negative impact on nearby businesses, parking, traffic and quality of life that many of us feared.

There's congestion on West Congress Street, of course, but during the day that's caused as much by the popularity of The Lady & Sons as it is by the blocked-off streets. The two-way stop sign added at Whitaker and Congress seems to be making the traffic on Congress flow more easily, in addition to making it safer for pedestrians to cross Whitaker.

Small businesses in the immediate vicinity have been amazingly resilient so far. That's surely in some measure because of the cooperation of area merchants through their organization The Shops at Ellis Square (www.theshopsatellissquare.com).

Like other downtown business collaboratives, The Shops at Ellis Square is gearing up for the holiday season. Planning has been under way for several months for a party and silent auction from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m. on Dec. 1.

The founding businesses of the organization are on Barnard just north of Broughton, but there are now more than two dozen members.

According to Michael Meeks, owner of The Express Café and Bakery, almost $15,000 of donated items will be auctioned, with all proceeds going to Backus Children's Hospital.

Individual merchants will be offering refreshments, and the Equinox Jazz Quintet will be performing.

As hard as it may be to imagine, one of these days Ellis Square will be the key connector between the Bull Street corridor and City Market, and between River Street and Telfair Square.

In the meantime, it's good to see that area businesses are making do.

In the coming weeks, I'll be mentioning other such collaborative efforts to bring Savannahians downtown for holiday shopping.

What does Asheville have that Savannah does not have?

Last month, I slipped away to Asheville, N.C., for a weekend.

And I'm still trying to make sense of it.

Over the last few years, I've mentioned a number of trips to other Southern cities (New Orleans, Mobile, Memphis, Chattanooga, Nashville, Jacksonville), and usually found it pretty easy to say how they stacked up against Savannah.

But Asheville poses some particularly interesting questions.

I was part of the throngs of tourist who spent a day at the Biltmore Estate, which I've wanted to visit ever since I saw "Being There" more than 25 years ago.

Clearly, some of Asheville's apparently booming economy is fueled by tourist dollars, but the vibrant downtown seemed to be largely caused by the support of local folks.

And there's a cultural conundrum there, too. While the tourists seemed to be the usual stereotypical middle-class lot, the city itself has a reputation for being one of the last bastions of "hippies."

Now, to me at least, the "hippie" label seems a bit silly at this point. (My 80-year-old mom described all of the long-haired young people simply as "cute.")

No, it's not about hippies. Based on the sheer number of bookstores, art galleries and unique eateries in Asheville's relatively small downtown, I would call the city tolerant and intellectual.

And here's where things get tricky, at least for me. Savannah has nearly twice as many people as Asheville, so why does downtown Asheville have more independent bookstores? How does Asheville support a top-notch vegetarian restaurant (The Laughing Seed) in the heart of the city? Why does it have more community theater groups that have their own performance spaces?

Yes, the citizens of Asheville are by and large older, wealthier and better educated than we Savannahians, but those factors alone don't seem to explain the vibrancy of the downtown.

Maybe the difference is caused by the limited size of Asheville's business district, which has virtually no commercial vacancies and is at the same time nearly devoid of chain stores. The bizarre pattern of streets, apparently determined more by geography than common sense, guarantees plenty of small storefronts and gives pedestrians plenty to look at.

The unpredictability is fun.

But there seems to be something else going on in Asheville. Maybe it's simple curiosity. Maybe there's a desire among residents to live life more publicly than in most places, whether that be by engaging in politics or going more often to the corner bar.

Whatever that quality is exactly, I wouldn't mind having more of it here.